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Page 20
"He will understand."
"Ay, I thought so."
"Father, we have never had any secrets, you and me. If I am not to
encourage Stephen Latrigg, do you want me to marry Julius Sandal?"
"Well, I never! Such a question! What for?"
"Because, at the very first, I want to tell you that I could not do
it--_no way_. I am quite ready to give up my will to your will, and my
pleasure to your pleasure. That is my duty; but to marry cousin Julius
is a different thing."
"Don't get too far forward, Charlotte. Julius has not said a word to me
about marrying you."
"But he is doing his best at it. Depend upon it he means marrying; and I
must say I thought you made out to understand him very well. Maybe I was
mistaken. Every man is a new book, and a book by himself; and it is not
likely I can understand them all."
"Now you are picking up my own words, and throwing them back at me. That
isn't right. I don't know whatever to say for myself. Eh? What?"
"Say, 'dear Charlotte,' and 'good-by Charlotte,' and take an easy mind
with you to Holler Scree, father. As far as I am concerned, I will
never grieve you, and never deceive you,--no, not in the least little
thing."
So she left him. Her face was bright with smiles, and her words had even
a ring of mirth in them; but below all there was a stubborn weight that
she could not throw off, a darkness of spirit that no sunshine could
brighten. Since Julius had come into their home, home had never been the
same. There was a stranger at the table and in all its sweet, familiar
places, and she was sure that to her he always would be a stranger.
Something was said or done that put them farther apart every day. She
could not understand how any Sandal could be so absolutely out of her
love and sympathy. Who has not experienced these invasions of hostile
natures? Alien voices, characters fundamentally different, yet bound to
them by natural ties which the soul refuses to recognize.
The somberness of her thoughts affected her surroundings very much as
rain affects the atmosphere. The hills looked melancholy: she was aware
of every stone on the road. Alas! this morning she had begun to grow
old, for she felt that she had _a past_,--a past that could never
return. Hitherto her life had been to-day and to-morrow, and to-morrow
always in the sunshine. Hitherto the thought of Stephen had been blended
with something that was to happen. Now she knew she must always be
remembering the days that for them would come no more. She found herself
reviewing even her former visits to Up-Hill. In them also change had
begun. And it is over the young, sorrow triumphs most cruelly. They are
so easily wounded, so inapt to resist, so harassed by scruples, so
astonished at troubles they cannot comprehend, that their very
sensitiveness prepares them for suffering. Very bitter tears are shed
before we are twenty years old. At forty we have learned to accept the
inevitable, and to feel many things possible which we once declared
would break our hearts in two.
There was an air of great depression also at Up-Hill. Ducie was full of
apprehension. She said to Charlotte, "When men as old as father fall,
they stumble at their own grave; and I can't think what I'll do without
father."
"You have Steve."
"Steve is going away. He would have left this morning, but for this
fresh trouble. I see you are startled, Charlotte."
"I am that. I heard nothing of it. He moves in a great hurry."
"He always moves that way, does Steve."
"How is grandfather?"
"He has had quite a backening since yesterday night. He has got 'the
call,' Charlotte. I've had more than one sign of it. Just before he fell
he went into the garden, and brought in with him a sprig of
'Death-come-quickly.' [The plant _Geranium Robertianum_.] 'Father,' I
asked, 'whatever made you pull that?' Then he looked so queerly, and
answered, 'I didn't pull it, Ducie: I found it on the wall.' He was quite
curious, and sent me to ask this one and the other one if they had been
in the garden. No one had been there; and, at the long end, he said,
'Make no more talk about it, Ducie. There's _them_ that go up and down
the fellside that no one sees. _They_ lift the latch, and wait not for
the open door, the king's command being urgent. I have had a message.' He
fell an hour afterwards, Charlotte. He did not think he was much hurt at
the time, but he got his death-throw. I know it."
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